


Skateboard//Graffiti

by Cheezbuckets



Category: Love Nikki Dress Up Queen
Genre: Event Character Backstory, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 14:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14595009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheezbuckets/pseuds/Cheezbuckets
Summary: In that stuffy afternoon before rain falls, the quarrels are like a war. They never understand me.  When I was needed most, I left. Maybe this is betrayal. I owe her an apology.//Those nights of quarrel, crying, and blame live in her memory like a nightmare. She lost her happy family and best friend at the same time. She's closed herself ever since to avoid any hurt.(This is the old version, I have a better version under the same name.)





	Skateboard//Graffiti

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first version of this fic, from before the event scripts had come back to the server! I've decided to keep it the way it is for archival purposes or whatever, but unless you're curious about this older, shorter, less polished, less accurate version, I recommend finding the newer version. As the summary says, it has the same title as this.

Acadia sighs staring out the window, trying to ignore the tears in her eyes. The air is warm and thick and heavy, dampened by thick and heavy grey clouds looming over the summer afternoon. The real thunder is coming from the kitchen; shouting, accusations, pleading, suggestions, denial.  
  
She moves her hand down to her thigh, the graphic kiss mark drawn in bold marker, a trial for the tattoo she dreamed of having some day. Miky’s kiss on her thigh. Sighing again, she looks around her room, a mess of ripped shorts and paint-stained shirts, stickers of bands and photos of graffiti art on every surface.  
  
She can hardly hear the words her parents are screaming, but she doesn’t need to. She knows. They were horrified, they were blaming each other, blaming the world, they were trying to decide what to do with their tainted daughter.  
  
She absently brushes the tears from her eye before standing, gulping as her throat tightens and the bruise on her face seems to throb. She can’t just wait for them to make a decision. Whatever it was going to be, it would be bad news for her. Very bad. And Miky...  
  
Miky...  
  
She blinks back tears and grabs her oversized backpack, shoving it full with clothing and essentials. When it’s filled, she pauses to unpin a few of the photographs; her favourite pieces of graffiti, the night she got to see her favourite band live, her and Miky proudly posing in front of Miky’s largest, greatest mural yet.  
  
She stares at it for several seconds then sighs and softly kisses the image of Miky’s face before tucking all of the photos into a small pocket of her backpack then slinging it over her shoulder. Setting her jaw, she picks up her skateboard and leaves her room, fiercely blinking away tears.  
  
Miky can take care of herself; Acadia needs to save herself before things get out of her control.  
  
Miky stares down at her trembling hands, tears silently falling down her face. A rain of tears pour from her parents, punctuated by lightning strikes of violently gesturing hands and thunderous demands of “Why?”  
  
Why? Because Acadia is brilliant, vibrant, shocking, warm. Because she had fallen in love with her best friend who loved her back. Because she is gay.  
  
But that isn’t what her parents want to hear, so she says nothing.  
  
When the storm passes with the declaration that she is not allowed to leave the house except for school until further notice and she certainly is never allowed to hang out with that terrible influence skateboarder again, she quietly gets up, goes to the bathroom, washes her face of traces of salt. She looks at the mirror and is shocked by how pale her silver-blue irises look set against the swollen red. She feels like a ghost.  
  
Silently, she slips down the hallway, out door, holding up her collar in half-hearted defense against the gentle rain falling through the dense air. She runs, boots splashing.  
  
One more time. She needs to see Acadia just one more time. Kiss her just once more.  
  
She is out of breath when she makes it to Acadia’s street, hair saturated and sticking across her face, unable to distinguish tears from rain. She quietly crosses to the window curtained by bright red and knocks. She waits a silent minute, heart in her throat, then knocks harder. She peers through the narrow gap between the curtains and sees shadows.  
  
Her hands are shaking again, but she lifts her chin and walks to the front door, knocking one more time. There is a short burst of raised voices, then the door opens to Acadia’s mother, wild-eyed and flushed. She scowls when her eyes set upon Miky. A fan inside blows a chilling breeze.  
  
Miky steels herself with a deep breath. “Is Acadia here?” she murmurs, unable to raise her voice above a whisper.  
  
Acadia’s mother suddenly goes ashen as her eyes widen. “She’s not with you?”  
  
Frozen with fear and shock for a moment, Miky only shakes her head.  
  
“Oh, god...” Acadia’s mother touches a hand to her mouth for several unbearable seconds before her face contorts with fury again. “Get out!” she snaps, and Miky flinches as she throws out her hand to point to the street. “Don’t ever let me see you again!” She whirls away, closing the door. “Oh, god, Acadia...” Shouting is muffled by the door.  
  
Miky stands frozen, shaking slightly, hardly able to breathe, heart pounding so hard she feels faint. Acadia, gone?  
  
Her entire body is shaking as she gets home and steals back to her room–her absence unnoticed by the quiet storm persisting in the living room. She sheds her wet clothes, pulls on pyjamas, then sits in her bed cross-legged, staring numbly at her cork board covered with photos of inspirational nature shots, sketches of ideas, and pictures with friends, a candid shot of Acadia’s carefree grin in the very centre.  
  
She waits, she watches the crowds in school and on the streets. She waits as long as she can bear it, until she has no choice but to accept that her best friend and first love was gone, a runaway with no intention of being found.  
  
The revelation of her and Acadia’s relationship had lost her most of her friends, and she withdraws from the rest, unable to handle the pressure of expressing herself or of pretending to be okay. It's too exhausting, and being alone feels suddenly very safe. She’s not mad, not sad either. She’s...  
  
Painting is the only thing that lets her feel anything now. She paints and paints and moves out the very instant she can, travelling city to city, painting all the way, trying to feel something again.  
  
Acadia gets the drawing on her thigh tattooed for real the first week out of town. She sleeps on out-of-town friends’ couches, spends her days scouting out skate parks. The freedom is intoxicating.  
  
Even after her skin is long healed, though, the tattoo on her thigh hurts her. She regrets getting it done, at first, and wears long shorts to cover it up. It’s not until she spots a group of graffiti artists laughing and working on a wall together that she recognizes the pain as guilt.  
  
The next day, she returns to her home town. She takes the long way to avoid both her house and Miky’s and finds all of the old hangouts of their friend group. The group has splintered, though, and everyone who will talk to her tells her Miky has long moved away, travelling freely, no one knows where she is.  
  
It takes Acadia no time to follow the trail of familiar graffiti from town to town, bringing nothing but her backpack and her skateboard. Even if only for a moment, she needs to find Miky. See her. Apologize. With every day, she can feel that she’s getting closer.  
  
She dyes a brilliant flame of red in her hair for the sole purpose of catching the eye, to be spotted in a crowd, even by someone who may not want to see her.  
  
She follows word of mouth to the hip hop event in a strange city. She is dazzled, at first, by the art, the music, the dance, the athletics, but catching a familiar style sprayed on a wall focuses her.  
  
She will always, always be grateful to those strangers.  
  
Miky’s hand is in hers. The rough edge of the stoop presses uncomfortably into her bare legs, but she doesn’t want to stand, to renter the crowd just yet. Soon. But now...  
  
She sighs, feeling content in a way she hasn’t in a long, long time.  
  
Acadia closes her eyes and lets the cacophony of music and voices and the grind of wheels envelop her, then leans her shoulder into Miky’s. For now, even guilt and regret are forgotten in the warm glow of relief. She sneaks a glance and, although her high collar covers her mouth, Miky’s eyes are smiling.  
  
Miky’s eyes slip half closed as she tilts her head to lean her cheek against Acadia’s shoulder. She can see those strangers still among the crowd and she is so, so grateful for their intervention. Her heart feels warmer than it has in a long, long time. There would be time for talk later–and she and Acadia needed to talk–so, for now, the comfort of the reunion is enough. For now, the tear stains and the echoes of the yelling on that stormy day don’t matter. In this moment, Miky and Acadia, Acadia and Miky, hand in hand, breathing the same air together.  
  
It is more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Ordinarily, I imagine that Miraland doesn't really have any kind of homophobia going on, but I've made an exception for the backstory I had in mind when reading the descriptions of Street Extreme and Graffiti Tempest. I wish the event script was recorded somewhere so I could accurately expand the reunion part, but what can you do? I rather want to write some gratuitous shippy nonsense for all of the event lesbians, so we'll see what happens!


End file.
